Taylor Swift‘s popularity has risen since her endorsement of VP Kamala Harris last month, contrary to Donald Trump’s prediction that she would “pay a price for it in the marketplace.“
Since Swift’s Sept. 10 announcement that she will vote for Harris in the U.S. presidential election, the superstar has gained 1.85 million followers on Spotify, to 122.56 million as of Oct. 3, according to data from analytics firm Chartmetric. Swift is currently second only to Indian artist Arijit Singh (123.29 million Spotify followers), per Chartmetric’s latest data.
Some Trump supporters have pointed to another metric — Spotify monthly listeners — to attempt to claim that Swift has lost fan support because of her Harris endorsement. Since Sept. 10, Swift’s monthly listener number has declined by about 3%, down 3 million to 91.4 million. (Spotify says its monthly listener figures represent total listeners in the previous 28-day period, including users who have streamed an artist’s music from active and programmed sources.)
But this is misleading: Swift’s monthly listener totals are coming off all-time highs for the singer, following the release of her 11th studio album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” on April 19, 2024. Swift’s monthly listeners on Spotify peaked at more than 116 million in May and that number has been trending down to more “normal” levels since then.
According to historical data from Songstats, Swift’s current monthly listener total remains above her prior-year averages going back to 2020. In addition — despite not having released new music for nearly six months — Swift remains one of the most popular artists on Spotify, ranking currently at No. 5 by monthly listeners (after The Weeknd, Billie Eilish, Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga).
Meanwhile, Swift’s Instagram follower count has increased by about 260,000 since her Harris endorsement, 283.9 million currently. In addition, the singer has gained about 200,000 YouTube followers, to stand at 60.1 million, while her views on the platform are up 0.7% over the last 30-day period, to 372.2 million, per analytics tracking site Social Blade.
On Sept. 10, Swift announced that she intends to vote for VP Kamala Harris in the 2024 U.S. presidential following Harris’ debate victory over Trump. Swift’s Instagram Story linked to the U.S. government’s Vote.gov, driving more than 400,000 visitors to the voter-information site in a 24-hour period. The following day, Trump claimed in an interview on “Fox & Friends” that “I was not a Taylor Swift fan” and that “she’ll probably pay a price for [endorsing Harris] in the marketplace.”
On Sept. 15, Donald Trump, without explanation, posted, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” on his Truth Social social media network. In her endorsement of Harris, Swift called out Trump for previously using a fake, AI-generated image of her to make it falsely appear as if Swift were endorsing him.
